Evil Music

Throughout history, numerous people have labeled certain music as evil. This often stems from cross-generational conflicts about societal and cultural disagreements. Examples include rock and roll for, among others, ‘provocative hip movements’, the Satanic Panic of the 80s targeting metal due to its lyrical themes and imagery, the continued criticisms of hip hop, again because of lyrical content and cultural impact. Evil in this context seems to be more of an aggregate label that (arguably) exaggerates negatives aspects, but mainly indicates dislike and limited understanding of the music at hand. The negative aspects are often shared across genres and criticisms: violence, promiscuity and blasphemy. Some artists embody all three at once and play into the evil label, Marylin Manson being a clear example from the Satanic Panic period. Often times these accusations of evilness are, while not necessarily unfounded, quite tame in my opinion. Sure, Marylin Manson did some heinous stuff, both publicly and privately, but even during the height of his cultural influence and the surrounding ‘panic’, most of it seems rather tame and more like an act designed to provoke. Or, as summarized by Calvin’s Mom:

> Mom can I buy a satan-worshipping, suicide-advocating heavy metal album?

< Calvin, the fact that these bands haven’t killed themselves in ritual self-sacrifice shows that they’re just in it for the money like everyone else. It’s all for effect. If you want to shock and provoke, be sincere about it.

Personally, music in this category has to satisfy two criteria: it has to be inherent and sincere. It has to be ingrained in the music, the production, the feeling, the atmosphere, and (optionally) the surroundings of the artist to be inherent to the music. If it covers the sensitive topics discussed earlier (violence, promiscuity and blasphemy), it has to be sincere. I’ll start with some examples that don’t satisfy this to illustrate the point. With bands like Cannibal Corpse or Iron Maiden, most of the evilness is for show. They are campy and fun, but not disturbing. While the lyrics are mostly sincere, often telling more of a story where something gory or evil happens, there is nothing inherently evil about their music. The disgusting lyrics of Corpsegrinder and tortured depictions of Eddy are fun like a campy horror movie can be fun. Evil? Not really.

Another prominent music genre often associated with evilness is Black Metal, especially the entire scene in the 90s. Church burnings, murders, decades of prison sentences, using body parts and corpses as marketing material; technically there’s a lot of ’evilness’ to pick from. However, I cannot shake the feeling of it all being a bit silly. Granted, the real life crimes are no joke, but we’re talking about evil music. The bands in this genre can conjure up some spooky ambience, but it doesn’t make me anxious. It doesn’t make me uncomfortable. I get a bit giddy at the silliness of it all, but most of all: I get annoyed. Not caring about production quality and barely caring about composition doesn’t make something evil. There’s too much effort being put into a lack of effort; this should somehow hint at an inherent evilness, which, for me, automatically removes all hope of it being sincere. Let’s now look at some music that I believe is more fitting of the evil label.

Daughters - You Won’t Get What You Want

The 2018 album You Won’t Get What You Want by Daughters is a prime example of evil music. The album is about the ramblings of an obsessed stalker and abuser. This alone is not inherent, it could be as with Iron Maiden just stories. What makes YWGWYW truly inherently evil is that it turns out Alexis Marshall has been seriously accused of this behavior in real life. This results in an added level of unease; on top of crushing production, tense composition and disturbing lyrics, we get a true glimpse into the mind of the protagonist in the songs. Its sincerity comes in two forms: there are no calm moments, the tension is always there and the lyrics are so ambiguous that you are forced to take them seriously in order to try to understand them. Personally, I really appreciate this album, it never fails to make me feel tense and slightly anxious; a unique quality. The production is highly effective, the instrumentation creative, the drums pummeling, and the lyrics and delivery haunting. It’s a challenging album, with a complex added dimension of the real life implications. On the one hand, you might want to separate the art from the artist (as many do with Kanye West, Led Zeppelin, Micheal Jackson and many more), on the other hand, since the subject matter is so tightly integrated with real life, there is some uncomfortable cognitive dissonance at play. Can this be separated? This makes this album’s evilness both genuinely inherent and sincere.

Chat Pile - God’s Country

The name of this band refers to piles of ‘chat’; large, poisonous, man-made piles of mining waste. This is not just a cool-sounding name, the band grew up around these piles in their home state of Oklahoma. While not necessary to know to enjoy their music, this already adds an added layer to the themes the band covers: being disillusioned with (American) industrial society, human trauma and modern day atomization. Chat Pile do something interesting in terms of ’evilness’; they project the ’evilness of the world’ into their music. Not through fantastical stories or ambigious lyrics, but by presenting very harrowing situations that cause distress because of how real their are. Take Why, a song that asks a simple question: Why do people have to live outside? Simple, but highly effective at making the listener uneasy. The evil in our modern world is presented very inherently and sincerely:

I’ve never had to push

All my shit around

In a shopping cart

Have you?

Have you ever had ringworm?

Scabies?

Have you ever had to live outside?

I don’t wanna live outside

All songs on the album are pummeling; down-tuned guitars, airtight production, panicked screams, and even down-tuned drums. But the evilness is not limited to external factors, personal trauma and issues are painfully present as well. The Mask is about someones personal traumas of having killed people while robbing a store, Slaughterhouse about lasting mental issues of working in a meat factory and grimace_smoking_weed.jpeg, apart from a great title, well, I recommend to just experience it. It’s not for the faint of heart; it’s probably the most sincere depiction of dealing with ‘personal demons’ I’ve heard. A big contrast with Daughters is that Chat Pile deep down seem like an bunch of empathetic hippies. They care a lot about the issues they raise. While I like and listen to quite a lot ’extreme music’, I cannot listen to this album all the time, it’s just too intense, but whenever I’m in the mood for some genuine uneasiness, I come back to this album. Which is probably the best compliment I can give it, as well as a good reason for being on this list.

Swans - Filth

The debut album of Swans is evil in a peculiar way.¹ Most songs by Daughters and Chat Pile have some semblance of song structure, melody and progression. Filth is almost ‘anti-music’ in a way. Endless repetition, constant buildups without payoff, almost no melody, harsh cuts, crushed production, and a lot of empty space. Right Wrong and Thank You are great examples of this; constant dissonance, expectations raised by the drums and guitars, but nothing pays off. The only slight relief you get is wild bell triplets in songs like Right Wrong, Stay Here and Power for Power, but it doesn’t feel friendly; you’re being mocked, a carrot on a stick. This is especially present when big tom hits cut off the bell on Power for Power. There are some slightly silly moments such as the warbly voices in Stay Here or the (I aplogize) ‘fecal’ resemblance of the tapedeck feedback on Weakling. It’s a challenge to sit through this album all the way; you’ll be beaten down, your natural musically-inclined expectations will be left unfulfilled and your spirit will be mangled by a barrage of dissonance. Music-wise, it definitely qualifies as inherently evil. The lyrics also do not hold back with Micheal Gira screaming short and monotone ‘war cries’ in your ear about rape, power and money. It’s all very, very bleak; Chat Pile at least provide an aggressive outlet for the desperation and Daughters shine some light into the darkness with unique and interesting compositions. Swans give you nothing, just bleakness, anger and desperation. Gang is the perfect closer for this; crawling on a dirty floor, grasping for some closure, and just when you think it’s over with the fade-out at the two minute mark, you get another minute of slow torture. I believe all this also makes Filth highly qualified for the sincere label; music like this cannot be written without some notion of sadism, either towards the listener or the writer; in this case both.

Closing Thoughts

These albums have shared aspects that represent evil music for me: 1) effective and crushing production, 2) uneasiness, and repetition and 3) experiencing delirium in overwhelming bleakness. The last one might sound dramatic, but it is the result of the ‘full’ package. All three albums at some points feel like being stuck in limbo, while looking at the gates of hell. You’re at the brink of going there, but not just yet.